


birthday

by prettylovely



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Family Fluff, Gen, No Incest, Swearing, Tickling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-01
Updated: 2020-10-01
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:22:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26752762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prettylovely/pseuds/prettylovely
Summary: Five is most definitely turning fifty-nine, not fourteen, but no one listens to him. Until they do.
Comments: 23
Kudos: 133





	birthday

A funny thing about growing up, Five had noticed, back in the apocalypse, was the older he got, the more his birthday, even shared with all his brothers and sisters, had felt less and less special over the years—nothing but a day on the calendar, a number and a name, a flat and lifeless and unremarkable thing. He was fifty-nine now, and it meant nothing to him except he had lived far longer than he had ever expected he would.

And, truth be told, he had simply and silently assumed his siblings felt much the same.

Until the first day of October.

"Birthday?" Five didn't actually mean to scoff. It just sort of slipped out. "Come on, aren't we all a little old for that kind of thing?"

Everybody—Allison in the chair on Five's left, wrapped up in a thick fleece blanket with her legs tucked up under her, Klaus sprawled out luxuriously over the entire sofa, like a model at a shoot, or a cat in the sun, with Vanya and Diego settled precariously on the arms to give him even _more_ unnecessary room, and Luther, crammed awkwardly in the largest seat, near the window—turned to look at him.

Vanya blinked.

Luther frowned.

Klaus peeled himself up off the sofa and scrambled over to cup Five's face in his heavily tattooed hands. "Oh, Five," he whispered, soft and deadly serious, " _who hurt you_?"

Five pushed him off.

"We're _thirty_ ," Allison pointed out, ever observant. "That's not exactly what I'd call old, Five."

"Can we get a cake?" Klaus plopped down on the arm of Five's chair, like he was in any way welcome within a hundred feet of Five. "If it's going to be a good birthday, I feel like it should have a cake. Maybe it'll lighten the old man up a little." He prodded his finger into Five's cheek.

Five smacked him away. "Yes, and I still can't believe natural selection let you all live to thirty in the first place. And need I remind you idiots, _I'm_ fifty-nine, so I'm—"

"Fifty-nine?" Diego cut in, his mouth edging up in a wide, dumbass grin. "Really? Because _I_ heard a rumor you were turning fourteen."

"I am _not_ ," Five said, before he could stop himself, before he could realize how petulant it would make him sound. "I'm fifty-nine, as you very well know, and I don't know what it will take for you morons to get that through your feeble little heads, but—"

"Oh, my god!" Klaus clapped a hand down on Five's shoulder. "Oh, my god! Five! Do you know what this means?"

"That I'm going to skin Diego alive?"

"We can put fourteen little candles in your cake!"

" _No!"_ Five whipped his head around to glare at Klaus. "No! No, we all know I am not turning fourteen, so—"

"But we can't fit fifty-nine candles in a cake," Luther pointed out, and in a reasonable sort of voice, too, like the number of hypothetical candles in a hypothetical birthday cake was the most important issue here. "It's a fire hazard."

Klaus clicked his tongue. "Worrying about 'fire hazards'—" he paused to put it in air quotes, "—is no way to live, brother mine—"

"—not starting a bonfire at the kitchen table just so Five can—"

"—but fourteen candles is clearly the most adorable option here, so—"

"I am _not fourteen_!" This was definitely not going to be the last time Five would need to remind them today, he could already tell.

"Are you sure about that?" Diego asked, all innocence, and he made himself right at home on the other arm of Five's chair, entirely uninvited. "Because you sure look like it." He jabbed a teasing finger right in Five's bony side.

And Five already had his mouth open to say _shut up_ or _fuck off_ or _the next person who says fourteen in relation to me is never going to turn thirty-one_ , but Diego's hand fluttered so quickly and so lightly over his ribs, and Five—

—Five squeaked. Out loud.

And, to make it even worse, his stupid child body jerked reflexively, back into the safe harbor of Klaus' scrawny legs, and everybody turned to look at him _again_.

Only this time, the situation was considerably _worse_ , because—

"Hang on, Five, did you just squeak?"

"No," Five said, too quickly to even be in the same zip code as _believable_ , but he trusted the dark glare on his face and his extensive experience in violent crime would be enough to keep his brother at bay. "Don't be a moron, Diego." He pushed out a scoff. "I know that's a tall order for you—"

But it turned out Klaus was even more of a bastard than previously assumed, because he reached out, and tickled down Five's left side, wickedly fast and unbearably light, and— _goddamn it, Klaus_ —Five broke off, right in the middle of his sentence, with a humiliatingly high-pitched squeal.

"No, no," he swatted, very ineffectively, at Klaus' wrist, but his mouth had already tugged up in a stupid, silly, wholly involuntary smile, and he could feel the laugh in his throat, "no, Klaus, fuck off—!"

He pulled back, to the other side of the chair, but the asshole just _followed him_ , evil fingers teasing his ribs with quick, small strokes, and Diego had gotten Five's other side in the distraction, hands pinching lightly up and down all the way from his ribs to his hip, and it tickled _so much_ , and an honest-to-God shriek finally forced its way out, just before Five collapsed into full-blown laughter.

"Oh, my god," Allison had the nerve to snicker, and she abandoned her chair to get around Klaus. She poked relentless fingers all over Five's exposed stomach. "Oh, my god. This is adorable."

"—shit, shit, don't—!" Five was already weak and breathless—he hadn't laughed this hard in his life, and it was _overwhelming_ —but he still tried to pull his legs up onto the seat, to keep even one sweet spot safe from his asshole family—

—and that was his fatal mistake. He knew it the minute he did it, the minute Allison's eyes darted down to his tucked-up legs, the minute a smirk tugged at her lips, and she reached down—

"—no, no, shit—!" Five uncoiled like a spring—he nearly lurched up out of the chair when her nails scratched over his knee. " _Shit!"_

"Come on, guys," Luther said, but the bastard was laughing, "you're gonna kill him."

"Not seeing a downside," Diego said, with one hand still on Five's ribs, and the other scribbling under his chin, and Allison had worked her fingers under his knees now, and this must be what hell felt like.

Even if, maybe, it felt kind of, a little bit, sort of—well— _nice_ , to laugh again, after so long without it. To mess around with his siblings again, like when he was a little kid, like when they were all little kids, and they had to be quiet, or else Dad would hear, and scold them.

"Well, he _is_ turning fifty-nine," Allison said, sweet as sugar, but that smirk had only gotten bigger, and Five knew not to trust it. "We want it to be official, don't we? How's that sound to you, Five?"

It didn't sound like much of anything to Five, because right now, there were four hands on his body tickling the living hell out of him, and he could barely think past that little detail.

But Diego's eyes gleamed, which was a bad sign. "Hey, yeah," and he was agreeing with Allison, which was an even _worse_ sign, "and we haven't even been keeping count." He raised a brow. "Shouldn't we start all over? What do you guys think?"

Okay, that sounded bad. "—start over—?" Five wheezed out, just before he broke off, with another mortifying squeal, as Allison gently dragged her long nails over the hypersensitive back of his knee.

"Yeah, buddy," Klaus had the audacity to ruffle his hair while he was—well— _otherwise occupied_ , "gotta do it all by numbers. If you get fifty-nine candles, you need fifty-nine minutes of our special brand of familial love and affection!"

Five hadn't heard that right. Five knew there was no way he had heard that right.

"Guys," Vanya said, but her eyes had crinkled up at the edges, and she had a grin on her face, and Five could tell she was enjoying this as much as everybody else, the traitor, "don't be mean, come on, cut it out, he's had enough—"

"Vanya," Klaus clapped a hand to his heart, "I cannot believe you want poor Five here to not turn fifty-nine! He's clearly got his little heart set on it!"

"Well, come on, let's be fair," Allison slowed the ruthless torture on his knees, but she didn't let go, and the silent threat made him squirm, "maybe if he were turning, mm, let's say," she tilted her head, and wrinkled her brow, like she really had to think about it, " _fourteen_? We could go ahead and call it even. What do _you_ think, Five?"

Diego and Klaus pulled back, too, but they kept their hands hovering half an inch over his ribs.

This was an out. This was very clearly an out, served up on a silver platter, and if he just sucked it up and grit his teeth and said he was fourteen—

Every ounce of Five's considerable pride recoiled at the mere thought of it. "I am _not_ ," he said, as haughtily as he could, which wasn't that haughtily at all, with all the breathless, leftover giggles still spilling out of his mouth, "turning _fourteen_."

The smirk crept back onto Allison's face. Had she always looked this _evil_ when she did that? "Then I guess," she squeezed his kneecap, and he couldn't stop himself before he jerked again, away from the ticklish touch, deeper into the chair, "we'd better start over."

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for checking this out! I don't know if I hit everybody's personalities exactly right, but I did try my best! Oh, and don't worry, they let Five go before long :)


End file.
